FAMILY SYSTEM

Family System resilience in Crisis

Family System resilience in Crisis

A growing phenomenon in family studies is the issue of family resilience. The foundation that lies behind family resilience is becoming such a major concern, because researchers and family educators are trying to become more knowledgeable about the layers behind the strong resilient family in order to better prevent and promote intervention strategies when a family's unit is stricken with a crisis.

Historical Perspective

Previous studies of resilience have been primarily focused on the individual who has survived a toxic, dysfunctional family rather than on the whole family Unit. For example, in 1971 Werner studied children in Hawaii who were living in adverse conditions (Werner & Smith, 1977). Werner found that resilience in the children was promoted by their individual dispositional attitudes, affection within the family, and the external family support at school, work, or church (Garmezy, 1991), According to Werner (1993), the resilient children had grown into educational and vocational accomplishments that exceeded high-risk peers' and were equal to those of low risk children in the cohort who were more affluent. As adults the feeling of hope and self-confidence were central components of the children (Werner, 1993). In 1974 Garrnez also studied the resilience of children; however, the participants in his study were born to schizophrenic mothers (Garmezy, 1993). Again, resilience was observed as the individual survived an adverse living condition within the family unit. These studies facilitated a series of studies in which resilience in children labeled as at-risk was observed. For instance, in 1988, Masten studied less intelligent children and their vulnerability to stressful events (Masten, 1997). Luthar followed in 1991 by studying adolescents and their resilience to stressful events (Luthar, Cicchetti & Becker, 2000). With the study, Masten contradicted previous research by finding that a child's individual temperament had more effect than expressiveness of the family (Tsehann, Kaiser, Chesney, Alkon, & Boyce, 1996). Open expressiveness became a stressor to resilience and vulnerability in young children (Tsehann et al, 1996). This research stimulated a shift in the paradigm of resilience research. Family studies researchers began to regard the family with a different lens. For example, Werner and Smith found the concepts of Resilience Theory in which the protective factors of the family, school, and community fostered the resilient child/adolescent through a caring environment (Krovetz, 1999).

Stressful family situations were the focus of Wolin and Wolin's(1995) research on resilience among youth growing up in substance abusing families. Wolin and Wolin identified seven resilience's or clusters of strength that developed in the children to protect them against the troubles in their families. Insight, independence, relationships, initiative, creativity, burner, and morality were the protective qualities that developed over time in resilient children, Wolin and Wohn also proposed that family rituals served as a means of protection and development of resilience in children of troubled families Once again, the family system appeared to be the main contributor to resilience.

Finally, another major paradigm shift began to come to the forefront when family scientists ...